In Which Ross Douthat Examines Social Security

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Ross Cardinal Douthatyesterday decided that the greedy olds are ripping him off, and he and Chris Van Hollen are not going to take it any more. Or something. In doing so, he masterfully delineated the actual case that conservatives have been making against Social Security since the moment it passed in 1933 — namely, that the biggest problem with the program is that it, you know, really works.

That outcome would be unfortunate. Payroll taxes are a relic of New Deal Machiavellianism: by taking a bite of every worker's paycheck and promising postretirement returns, Franklin Roosevelt effectively disguised Social Security as a pay-as-you-go system, even though the program actually redistributes from rich to poor and young to old. That disguise has helped keep Social Security sacrosanct — hailed by Democrats because it protects the poor and backed by Republicans as a reward for steady work.

Well, we certainly can't have that. I also would point out that Social Security didn't "promise post-retirement returns," it delivered them, every last dime of them, and it pretty much eliminated abject elderly poverty in this country, which I guess is something we can't have, either.

But the costs of this disguise have grown too great to bear. Whatever its past political advantages, the payroll tax now imposes an unnecessary burden on a stagnating economy. In an era of mass unemployment, mediocre wage growth and weak mobility from the bottom of the income ladder, it makes no sense to finance our retirement system with a tax that falls directly on wages and hiring and imposes particular burdens on small business and the working class.

Again, what "disguise"? Unless we all get sold out, and the government starts listening to the likes of Ross Douthat, Social Security recipients pretty much get everything that they put into the system while they were working. The CBO says the trust fund is solvent through 2038, and some minor tweaks — like lifting the cap, which Young Master Douthat declines to mention — we can push the event horizon even deeper into the future. Also, ask a member of the "working class" — How does this guy use that phrase without his tongue turning to flame? — how they'd like to keep Grandma and Grandpa in the den downstairs because they're both 79 and have no fking income. I suspect we'll be hearing about the ant and the grasshopper very soon.

Scoreboard!

It's been left to a few prominent Democrats, including Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, to make the case for letting the holiday continue. This is a positive sign for liberalism, since it suggests a preference for middle-class paychecks over middle-class entitlements, and a willingness to recognize that the ideals of work and thrift and upward mobility aren't necessarily well served by the way we tax and spend today.

(The payroll tax cut was intended to be a short-term stimulus, something that, in other guises — say, like rebuilding bridges or repairing dams — His Eminence would be expected to oppose. There were those of us who pointed out that extending it would lead inevitably to some charlatan using it as a wedge to take a hack at the program itself.)

Up with this, I do not have to put. Where in hell does this cosseted layabout get off lecturing people about "work and thrift and upward mobility"? It's like listening to Ann Romney talk about carpet samples. The people who actually have to practice these virtues — which is to say, those who are not the beneficiaries of ideological affirmative-action in our nation's great newspapers — also would just as soon not die of starvation in the cold when they hit 70. They also would like not to have to work when they are 80. If this outrages His Eminence, he can go whistle. But, eventually, we get around to what's really going on. Social Security is a government program that works. It is a government program that people like. Douthat's conclusion that the Republicans can gain back the loyalties of "the middle class" by turning it against Social Security is the funniest political advice since Jonah Goldberg presumed to give the GOP "Negro lessons" last week. By all means, Ross, go out among the many "middle class" workers of your casual acquaintance and tell them that it's Social Security, and not the obscene imbalance of our tax code, that's screwing so many of them. Persuade them that it's really their parents who are bleeding them dry. Bring them over to the party that just nominated Mitt Romney by the force of that particular argument. Leave your dental records with me.